Guidelines

May 19th, 2020 - In the phase III PROfound trial (NCT02987543), men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who had disease progression while receiving enzalutamide or abiraterone and who had homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene alterations demonstrated longer progression-free survival and better measures of response when treated with olaparib than enzalutamide or abiraterone.1 Now, t...

May 19th, 2020 - Alice Yu, MD, PhD, of the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, will receive the 2020 Pediatric Oncology Award. The award, first presented in 2002, recognizes a pediatric oncologist who has demonstrated outstanding leadership or achievement in the field.

May 28th, 2020 - An interim analysis of the GAIN-2 study in patients with high-risk early-stage breast cancer indicated that the use of neoadjuvant/adjuvant intense, dose-dense epirubicin, nab-paclitaxel, and cyclophosphamide (iddEnPC) and dose-dense, dose-tailored epirubicin/cyclophosphamide followed by dose-dense, dose-tailored docetaxel (dtEC-dtD) were equivalent (Abstract 516).

May 12th, 2020 - Although chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) has a relatively high 5-year survival rate (85% for people age 20 and older), effective treatments for advanced disease are still needed. Use of combination or monotherapy Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors has shown promise for people with CLL, with the BTK inhibitor ibrutinib now considered a standard of care for patients of any age. However,...

May 12th, 2020 - Higher prechemotherapy lymphocytes and lower neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were found to correlate with an increased risk of functional decline and reduced ability to regain baseline physical function in women with breast cancer in a recent study from the University of Rochester National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program (Abstract 549). The study, which will be presented ...

May 12th, 2020 - A retrospective study examining the time since a patient quit smoking before a lung cancer diagnosis and the subsequent survival outcomes after the lung cancer diagnosis indicated that it is never too late to stop smoking (Abstract 1512). Among patients diagnosed with lung cancer who had quit smoking within 2 years of lung cancer diagnosis, risk of death from any cause was reduced by 12% when c...

May 12th, 2020 - Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive disease that is resistant to endocrine therapy and anti-HER2 molecular targeted treatments. However, results from a new study suggest that natural killer (NK) cells may be an effective alternative focus for future immune-based treatments to improve survival in patients with TNBC (Abstract 510).

May 12th, 2020 - Betty Ferrell, PhD, MA, FAAN, FPCN, calls it her “lightning bolt moment” when a gravely ill patient with cancer beseeched her for relief from his terrible pain—and set her on a lifetime of groundbreaking work in palliative care.

May 12th, 2020 - Despite robust efforts, no adjuvant systemic therapy has succeeded in prolonging overall survival beyond that achieved with surgery alone in patients with nonmetastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The phase III PROSPER RCC trial, along with similar studies, may well break that trend, ousting postsurgical surveillance as the current standard of care (Abstract TPS5101)

May 12th, 2020 - In pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who received prior blinatumomab exposure or inotuzumab ozogamicin as bridging therapy, treatment with tisagenlecleucel is associated with consistent adverse event and efficacy outcomes previously reported in the ELIANA trial, according to the results of the B2001X study (Abstract 10518).

May 12th, 2020 - A substantial proportion of Medicare patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) do not undergo a complete diagnostic evaluation (CDE), including a bone marrow biopsy, to confirm their disease (Abstract 7555).

May 12th, 2020 - Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, director of the Chen-Huang Center for EGFR-Mutant Lung Cancers, and director of the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Sciences at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has been named the 2020 Science of Oncology Award recipient for his career-long contributions to advancing therapies for lung cancer.

May 12th, 2020 - Combination pembrolizumab plus intermittent dabrafenib and trametinib was found to be more tolerable than continuous triple therapy in patients with melanoma harboring the BRAFV600 mutation, according to the latest results from the IMPemBra trial (Abstract 10021).

May 12th, 2020 - Augmented intelligence (AI) could help in the timely integration of palliative care into the treatment plan of patients with advanced cancer, according to a large community practice study (Abstract 12015).

May 30th, 2020 - Early initiation of locoregional treatment (LRT) of an intact primary tumor (IPT) in women with de novo stage IV metastatic breast cancer does not appear to prolong survival or improve health-related quality of life (HRQoL) compared with systemic therapy alone, according to a new study (Abstract LBA2). Seema A. Khan, MD, of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital, presented these findings during the...

May 31st, 2020 - An allogeneic chimeric antigen T-cell therapy plus an anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody appeared safe for certain patients with large B-cell or follicular lymphoma, according to study data presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program.